Was Jolla Sabotaged like Nokia?

asked 2015-12-01 12:29:25 +0200

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updated 2016-01-14 01:12:33 +0200

sifartech
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(I am wearing my conspiracy theory hat now. :)

The Background

For the American initiative to spy on the world to succeed, it broadly needed to achive three goals - have complete dominance on OS'es that run computers (smartphones incuded), browser technology (the current popular mode through which internet is accessed) and use of cloud based technology (so that people start storing their personal info on computers the users doesn't own or control).

To this end, their brilliant approach towards this goal is to ensure that American businesses lead in the development of these technologies, ensure that this technology is denied to others and to use their enormous business clout (backed by one-sided trade treaties aggresively pushed by the US government) to ensure that no other competing business (from other countries) is allowed to dominate in these areas.

While Windows OS is a dominant platform and runs on nearly 90% of home and corporate PC's, Nokia mobile phones and its Symbian OS (along with a few other OS) were dominant on mobile phones a decade ago. It was thus imperative to destroy Nokia so that an American managed and controlled OS could be run on any mobile phones.

To that end, all of us are familiar how Nokia was screwed by its CEO (a Microsoft guy), who many believe intentionally worked to destroy Nokia from within, so that Microsoft could buy out its Nokia mobile division. (Ofcourse, while Microsoft still continues to fail with its OS even through Nokia, other American companies in this field are doing quite well - Android from Google and ios from Apple - and today dominate the mobile OS ecosystem worldwide).

Something similar was also happening to another European company - Opera. While Chromium, Webkit, Firefox and Internet Explorer (all browser technologies currently owned and controlled by US firms) rules on the PC's, Opera was the number 1 browser on the mobile platform. Through investors, perhaps influenced by Google, the original founder and CEO was chucked out, the company changed direction and become an ad company, and even dumped their original browser code to now use Google's browser. Thus, another European company and technology was subsumed by the Americans.

The push towards storing everything on the cloud should be very obvious now to everyone - whether you use Apple products, or Windows 10 or mobile OS or Android - every device with American software is making a congruent, concerted effort to push their users to use the "cloud".

Now, let me come back to Jolla and Sailfish OS.

Jolla in the Public Eye

Despite its financial situation (that we weren't aware of), Jolla was suddenly picking up momentum in the past year. BRICS (well, mostly Russia and China) were taking an interest in Jolla, exploring alternate OS platforms. The Jolla tablet campaign, though small, was quite successful and generated very good publicity for Jolla. Intex announced publicly that it would be launching a mobile phone powered by Sailfish. Nokia would be free to launch their own smart phones in 2016.

Sailfish starts losing 'unlike' charm, looking more like Android and IOS

With Sailfish OS 2.0, Jolla announced a change in the interface to 'accommodate' the larger screen of the tablet. While it all sounded good, the released product met with a lot of criticism and users felt the changes were quite unwelcome. Many felt that Sailfish OS 2.0 UI now looked more like Android or ios and the current UI design looks like a slightly unpolished, fancy android launcher running on Android OS. Many felt that new users would think that Sailfish seemed to have copied and tweaked their interface from a mish-mash of such Android launchers.

It's not always easy to say no to investors as management generally prefers to be in their good book. Were these changes made to please some existing or prospective investors with other vested interests, who proposed to them that the OS would be more acceptable to new buyers if it looked more like Android or ios?

Why would a company deliberately try to kill the 'uniqueness' of its product that had attracted its initial user base?

Bankrupt Jolla

Despite the grumblings from its users about the changes to the OS, most were excited at the prospect of Jolla's growth and future. It seemed as though Sailfish OS was on the cusp to become a commercially viable platform that could threaten the dominance of Androids and iPhones (ofcourse, in the far future).

But suddenly we hear of investors backing out from their promises.

I wonder if the timing is really a coincidence? Did these investors perhaps just dangle a carrot, knowing that Jolla would overstretch themselves?

Ofcourse, I am not offering any excuses for the management who spent money that they didn't have in the first place - by diverting the crowdfunded tablet money for other purposes in expectation of the investors funds.

Still, I can't help but wonder whether they were just fooled by the investors so that Jolla would go bankrupt?